Miserando Atque Eligendo: Lowly And Yet Chosen - A Few Brief Reflections On Our New Pope

Tonight, before bed, I proffer a few thoughts on our adorable new Holy Father.  He keeps growing on me, the more I read and pray for and about him.  Details, such as that his first act as pope the morning after the election was to visit Maria Maggiore, which is the great Roman shrine to our Lady, just sing to me.  He arrived by stealth, with ten minutes notice, eschewing the usual papal motorcade. That is simply beautiful.

Note that the title of this post is his episcopal motto.  Again, like almost everything I read about him, I think it is great.

He reminds me of John Paul I - unassuming, exuding gentle kindness, but with a hint of toughness.  Not at all radiating with the charismatic charm of John Paul II, not even the calmer, nebbish charisma of Benedict.. He seems often impassive, expressing little emotion.  Subdued, humble in appearance.  Not the type of fellow you'd tend to notice in a crowd, unlike his two recent predecessors.  

But that common air is perfect.  Very apt in a priest:  "He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us near him.." Exactly.  Just so.  

I think in practical terms his election is explained by two things.  First, Rome is an Italian archdiocese.  It should have an Italian pastor, or at least a pastor who knows them and their language.  And too, the curia is dominated by Italians, and Italian ways.  The curial voting block in the conclave, and those cardinals who would like to see them disciplined in light of the scandals that are festering there, would both want someone who would will relate well to all of that, immediately.  Second, the Church is now no longer mostly European.  We need leadership from the larger world.  A universal pastor from Europe, or worse Italy, would be a parochial choice..

How to solve this paradox?  In Francis we have the perfect resolution.  An Italian, but from outside Italy. Better, one from Latin America, where the strength of the Church now resides.

He has chosen the name Francis, which means of France, or Frank.  Many have commented that it's a homage to Francis of Assisi whose ministry reinvigorated the late medieval Church, and Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit who converted the East. It is of course both of these things.  

But it is also interesting to think how the German Franks, the French, while the "first daughter of the Church" were also simultaneously the great antagonists of Papal supremacy throughout the Middle Ages.. In that great struggle between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy over rule of Europe - Guelphs versus Ghibellines - dating back to the moment Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor on Christmas 800, where the pope surprised the king by refusing to hand the crown to him for him to place it on his own head, the pope himself crowning the Emperor in a symbolic act of supremacy over the secular power.. Through to the moment that Napoleon seized the crown from the hands of Pius VII and crowned himself Emperor in 1804.. 

The term "emperor" of course signifies Emperor of Rome, which is shorthand for the civilized world.  The fact that the Franks, the Germans, had the temerity to claim that title while the historical line of emperors descending from Constantine was still extant in Constantinople, was not exactly appreciated in Byzantium.  Indeed, it is the single most important catalyst creating the Schism we still suffer from today between the Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

This is a major theme I want to continue to treat here on the blog, that I have yet to touch upon at all: the role of political power and ethnic divisions in creating the great schismatic blocks in the Church -Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.. The struggle over the imperium, the legacy of Rome, is at the heart of that.  

I think the name Francis may in a sense resonate somehow in terms of that struggle - Our new pope may in some way be signaling that that struggle is finally over.  That the papal claim to secular imperium is finally utterly dead. Our Pope Francis reconciles that tension in himself and resolves it.

The pope is now asserting the plenitude of spiritual power.  The reason the Church exists is because people respond to Christ. His humility. God comes to us as a child. Then he offers himself to us, up for us, on the cross. 

This is what love is. This is the form that true power takes. This is our God.

When the Church is humble like this, she conquers the world. When we surrender all pretension to worldly power, and bear the cross with the suffering and poor, we triumph.  

In Christ, like Francis and all the other saints.  Francis of Assisi's example, however, is one of the most radical. Our new Holy Father Francis is calling us to that extremity of love and humility.

Pope Francis has only one lung.   Odd fact, that.  Pope John Paul II always used to use the metaphor of two lungs of the Church in discussing our Orthodox brothers.  That we are one organism, breathing through two lobes.  

Here, we have a pope who as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires was also bishop of the Eastern Rite in Argentina.  This is unusual, usually the Eastern Rites have their own separate bishop.  

And he has got only one lung.. A single pnuema if you like.  Like I say, odd..  Isn't it?

I'll end this rumination by quoting our Holy Father's first public homily as pope, given at mass on Wednesday, March 13th.  I really thought it was good, so I'll share an excerpt.  The extended homily is pithy - I read it aloud to myself and it took me 2.5 minutes - and profound.  That's the essence of good preaching.  Succinct and powerful.  

I give you about half of it here, what I think the best part:

[W]e can walk as much we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a compassionate NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. When one does not walk, one stalls. When one does not build on solid rock, what happens? What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sandcastles: everything collapses, it is without consistency. When one does not profess Jesus Christ – I recall the phrase of Leon Bloy – “Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.” When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.

[...]

The same Peter who confessed Jesus Christ, says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I will follow you, but let us not speak of the Cross. That has nothing to do with it. I’ll follow you on other ways, that do not include the Cross.” When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord.  We are worldly.  We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord.

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage – the courage – to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward. My hope for all of us is that the Holy Spirit, that the prayer of Our Lady, our Mother, might grant us this grace: to walk, to build, to profess Jesus Christ Crucified. So be it.

So (utterly not mote) be it, indeed.  I love this man.  I think we have ourselves a wonderful new pastor.  Thank God.

May God bless and keep our Holy Father.

Now it's midnight.  Sleepytime.  Goodnight, everyone.

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